


Flirt-Off!

by Lunabellie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on a Tumblr Post, Betting, Flirt-off AU, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Hunk and Pidge are having way too much fun with this, M/M, Mutual Pining, Rivalry, klance, more tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-20 06:04:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12426534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunabellie/pseuds/Lunabellie
Summary: Keith's a hundred percent sure he can withstand someone flirting with him, even if that person is Lance.The odds might be against him though.





	1. Prologue: Bets

**Author's Note:**

> Based off kitzunezakuro's post on Tumblr :http://kitsunezakuro.tumblr.com/post/166227991270/re-thing-to-this-thing-that-i-made-based-of-that
> 
> Full credit goes kitzunezakuro for the idea!

“You really can’t, sorry dude,” Hunk shakes his head and smiles, like he thinks it’s a joke.

“Yes I can.”

Pidge rolls her eyes, “Keith, we’ve been over this a thousand times,” she sighs, as if she really _had_ been over it a thousand times and she were tired of talking about it, “you really can’t.”

“I can totally handle flirting!” Keith snaps.

Pidge blinks and then tilts her head to the side. A sly smile graces her face as she leans in and stares straight into his eyes, “are you sure?”

That smile should have been the first thing to tip him off that something was up, but his mouth moves quicker than his brain can catch up, “yes!”

The lounge is silent, and it dawns on him that he might have just made a huge mistake: Pidge definitely had something planned. Hunk is smothering a smile behind a hand, whilst Pidge continues to stare at him, as though she’s assessing him for something. Surely Pidge wouldn’t make him do anything stupid or embarrassing, right? He could take a joke, but not if it seriously damaged his image or anything. It’s not too late now to back out anyway. Pidge pulls away from him, her smile still in place and a wicked gleam in her eyes. She’s reached a decision. Whatever she’d seen in him she decided he could take it.

“Hunk?”

He looks to Hunk and sees a matching gleam in his eyes and a pleased grin.

 

Oh no.

 

“Already on it,” Hunk tells her and springs up from the couch. Keith opens his mouth to tell him ‘ _actually, I’ve changed my mind!’,_ but Hunk is already hurrying away and out the automatic doors.

Pidge gets to her feet more slowly, and stretches her arms above her head as she walks away. Her fingers crack as she bends them, and he wrinkles his nose at the sound. She stops just before the doors and looks over her shoulder- her hands still above her head- and flashes him a grin, “stay right there, okay?”

He’s so confused. They had to be planning something big if it involved them leaving to go grab something. He hesitates for just a second, then gives her a single nod. What else could he do? They all lived together. If he fled, they’d just track him down and force him to go along with it anyway.

Appearing satisfied with that, she leaves him alone to deal with his growing confusion.

 

{*}

 

They come back with Lance, who (thankfully) looks just as confused as Keith feels.

Hunk has a hand between Lance’s shoulder blades and is pushing him along, which probably means he was lead here without being told of their plans. Pidge follows them in and plonks herself back in her spot next to him. She looks absolutely pleased with herself. Hunk looks way too happy as well.

Maybe they’re plotting his death and are recruiting Lance’s help. What else would they bring Lance for? Jokes aside, he knows that whatever they’ve got planned for him he isn’t going to like.

“Hunk?” Lance asks, and his eyes flicker between each occupant in the room, “what’s going on, bud?”

Hunk steers Lance over to Pidge, who treats them all to a shifty smirk as she looks up at Lance, “you still think you can woo anyone?”

Lance looks bewildered, but he answers without seeming to think the question over, “yup.”

Hunk turns to Keith with his own shifty smirk, “and you’re a hundred percent sure you can handle flirt--”

“Yes.” Keith says over him and grits his teeth. He doesn’t want Lance to know about their previous conversation. They were rivals, after all. It’d be used as ammunition against him in any future argument they’d inevitably have. Yes, he could handle someone flirting with him. He just… wasn’t that great at responding, that’s all. If Lance knew that, he’d never let him live it down. Lance was notorious for being a flirt. He probably wouldn’t be able to understand why Keith had trouble _responding_ to flirting.

How a person responded to flirting was different from being able to handle it, right?

Pidge and Hunk share a look before turning back to them. They each wear identical impish grins. Keith’s stomach sinks. Ohhh no. He glances at Lance, to gauge his reaction. He was slightly relieved to see that Lance also looks faintly alarmed. 

“It’s settled then,” Hunk and Pidge say in unison. Keith felt a chill go down his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He wasn’t going to lie to himself, that was slightly freaky. He wondered if Lance thought so as well.

Hunk slings a casual arm over Lance’s shoulders. “Your job is to flirt with Keith!” He says cheerfully, “C’mon and win this, I got like $10 on you!”

Keith’s mouth drops. He stares at Hunk with wide disbelieving eyes. He can’t have heard him right. Lance? Flirt with _him? _  This had to be a joke. A dumb, stupid, spur-of-the-moment joke. Any second Pidge and Hunk would laugh and say, “Just kidding!”

Only, they weren’t.

“H-hold on a second,” Lance’s face is white. He’s staring at Hunk with an equal disbelief. But Hunk just claps him on the back and pulls away to lean against the side of the couch. He smiles at them both like he’s pleased with his brilliant idea.

An arm wraps itself around Keith’s own, and his gaze flickers to Pidge sitting on her knees beside him. She stretches her head up to his ear and tells him quietly, so the other two can’t hear, “listen here, I got a bet with Hunk and you’re the horse I’m betting on. You gotta survive flirting from Lance.”

She pulls away slightly, just so their eyes can meet, “we get bonus points if _you_ outflirt _him.”_

He knows his face is blotching red. He can feel it. His brain stumbles over how he should respond to that, but his mouth doesn’t seem to be working right now. Him. And Lance. Flirting with each other. They wanted him to handle Lance flirting with him, _and him to flirt back._ His brain jolts into clarity after that.

“No way!” he shouts, just as Lance does. Ugh, again with the creepy talking in unison.

“Oh?” Pidge raises a delicate eyebrow as her eyes sweep between the two of them, “so you guys don’t want to see who’s better?"

That was playing dirty. She knew he couldn’t back down from a challenge. It was how he was. Not only that, but they were rivals, and no matter how immature it seemed he had to beat Lance in whatever challenge was thrown at them. Lance was no better. He always had to prove to everyone around them that he could do better. Not that he could, of course. Keith was confident that no matter what, he’d always be better than Lance in anything.

He meets Lance’s eyes. Lance is biting his lip, like he’s hesitant to accept. His own resolve is wavering inside of him. On one hand, he had to prove he was better. On the other, this would be so, so, so awkward.

He curls his lip at the thought of actually having to stand Lance flirting with him. Lance see’s this, and something flashes in his eyes like steel. Lance squares his jaw and gives him a curt nod and the two of them abruptly look away from each other.

“It’s on!” they yell, and Keith inwardly groans because they spoke in unison _again._

Pidge claps and rubs her hands together like she’s just settled an amazing business deal and walked away with the better offer, “first we’ve got to set some rules.”

He avoids looking in Lance’s direction and just folds his arms, staring at the floor. This was going to be humiliating. He should just back out now. There was no way he could react casually to Lance flirting with him, nor could he flirt back. He’d never even flirted with anyone in his entire life! Not only would he lose, but Pidge would hold him responsible for losing her bet. It was stupid. Pointless. A battle he’d already lost. _The underdog,_ his mind traitorously quips at him.

But he’d never been one to admit defeat so easily. It was too late to back out now.

“First rule: we’re going to keep a score. First team to make it to a hundred is the winner,” Pidge announces.

“Second rule,” Hunk adds and holds up two fingers for emphasis, “You lose points if your pick-up lines suck.”

 _"_ Who gets to decide what’s a lame pick-up line?” Lance asks, and Keith lifts his head to spot Lance’s frown.

Hunk seems to mule over this for a moment, “hmm, I think Pidge and I can be the judges of that?”

Pidge nods, “we’re reasonable enough to come to a civil agreement.”

“Then it’s settled,” Hunk says, “if we miss you guys flirting you have to come to the both of us so we can agree if it’s worth a point.”

“You get five points for each successful flirt, and lose five if it sucks,” Pidge tells them around a grin. She shrugs when they all frown at her, “it’ll make it go quicker.”

“Third rule: if- for whatever reason- one person is uncomfortable with the way the other is flirting with them, they can call timeout or we can end the game. No questions asked and no teasing or hard feelings about it.” Hunk looks uncharacteristically strict about this. He makes sure to capture both Keith and Lance’s eyes, the unspoken ‘ _or else’_ echoes’ through the room.

“Anything else?” Keith grumbles, looking away again.

“None that I can think of right now,” Pidge stretches out her legs in front of her and swings them back and forth, “but you guys start tomorrow.”

“Wonderful, I’m looking forward to it.” Keith shoots Lance a poisonous glare, which Lance returns. Honestly, if Lance had backed out of this none of it would have happened. He gets up and strides out of the room to get ready for bed. He wants to put off looking at them all for as long as possible. He can’t believe he’d been tricked into a stupid flirting game with his rival.

He dreaded Shiro finding out. The man would never let him live it down.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter One- What's A Tomato ?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it begins.

The next morning, he goes to breakfast hoping against all odds that everyone’s miraculously forgotten about the stupid bet and he can go on with his normal life.

He scuffles into the kitchen and sees the other six members of the team sitting in the makeshift breakfast nook they’d made back in their first week. The dining table always seemed too formal for things like breakfast. Shiro brought this up to Allura, who’d agreed and suggested they make something more cosy and comfortable to eat in. Hence, the breakfast nook was born.

He wasn’t normally the last to arrive at breakfast, but he’d been putting it off. Today he’d start his bet against Lance. From the way Shiro was eyeing him, he could tell he’d already been filled in on the stupid game. Great. There was a touch of concern in Shiro’s gaze, but mostly he looked pretty amused. _Glad I could entertain you, Shiro_ , he inwardly grumbles. His eyes flicker away from Shiro to Lance, who stares back with an unreadable expression.

For the most part, the rest of the group is pretending nothing’s wrong. As he sits, Pidge smiles warmly at him over a bowl of goo, her cheeks bulging as she does. He returns the smile briefly and helps himself to a bowl. Allura continues chattering to Hunk about something to do with the castle’s technology, seemingly unaware of the not-so-subtle anticipation the room has just been filled with. This is good. He can work with this. If the others are pretending there’s nothing going on, then so can he. Maybe he and Lance can keep it just between themselves, Hunk and Pidge. A bubble of ease settles in his chest. That would make things _so_ much easier for him. He picks up his spoon and scoops up some goo. He might even have a better chance at winning.

“Enjoy your beauty sleep, gorgeous?”

The spoon stops halfway up to his mouth, and he sits frozen.

The team pauses too. Pidge is grinning, and Hunk looks smug; like he knew what was coming. Coran looks like he’s holding back a smile, and Keith spots Shiro and Allura share an exasperated look of mutual resignation.

But mainly his eyes are focused on Lance, who smirks and gives him a wink.

Now, Keith feels like he probably should have mentioned privately to Pidge last night (just to let her know she’d bet on a lame horse) that he’d never been the object of someone else’s flirting before. His entire experience with flirting came from second-hand experience. He’d read about people flirting, and had seen it on T.V more than a few times, but not once had someone actually flirted with _him_. Nor had he ever flirted.  He’d always put it down to him being the loner kid in all his classes. The kid from the desert. The orphan. An object of pity maybe, but not someone to flirt with. He didn’t mean to sound like he was feeling sorry for himself, but that was the truth.

It’s totally lame, because Lance could barely be considered flirting right now. Yet his face burns red and he has to look away from those intensely bright blue eyes.

“Ooo, that definitely counts!” Hunk yells and stands up, pointing straight at Keith’s burning face.

“No, it doesn’t!” He shouts back, but Pidge is already groaning and hanging her head in defeat. Hunk reaches under the table and pulls up a small white-board (where did he find that?), which has Keith and Lance’s names in two columns. Under Lance’s, he puts a strike.

Lance grins at him and says happily, “This is going to be the easiest bet I’ve ever won.”

Keith looks to Shiro for support, “They can’t give him a mark just because I blushed!”

“I’m playing referee, and they told me all the rules already, Keith,” Shiro tells him with a slight snigger to his words, “blushing counts as being flustered.”

Keith scowls and drops his spoon in his bowl. He isn’t hungry anymore.

Hunk reaches out and pats his shoulder sympathetically, “If it makes you feel better we agreed you can blush _a little,_ but right now you’re as red as a tomato.”

“What’s a tomato?” Allura asks, turning to Hunk.

“It’s a fruit we have on Earth that’s the same colour as Keith’s face right now,” Lance answers instead and gestures with a wave of his hand to Keith’s face before finally looking away from Keith.

The team goes on to talk about Earth’s various fruits, but he can’t bring himself to join in. He sits in silence, stirring his goo absentmindedly. He’d die before admitting it to anyone, but for a second there he felt something. His head couldn’t put it into poetic terms like he’d read about, but it was like Lance had instantly shut his body down. He hadn’t drawn breath, and his heart skidded to a dull thud. It was fake, yeah, but for a moment he’d truly believed Lance was flirting with him.

He sneaks a peek at Lance, who’s laughing at a pun Pidge has made. He doesn’t seem bothered by what happened. He’s already brushed it off like it was nothing—or a joke.

His heart gives a sad little twinge at that thought, but he’s already ignoring it. What else was it supposed to be? Lance was out to win, just as he was. If he wanted to one-up Lance, he’d have to get him back with something better.

A wickedly fiendish idea pops into his head at that moment. It’ll gain a lot of attention, that’s for sure, but if Lance wasn’t going to pull his punches and keep this challenge relatively private, then neither was he. He also couldn’t let it backfire. If he ended up being the one mortified over his own dumb actions, then it’d completely defeat the purpose of doing it in the first place.

He sucks in a deep breath and steels himself. He purposefully doesn’t look at the others as he stands up, even when he feels all their eyes on him again. He takes careful steps over to Lance, who is still seated and looking up at him with slightly confused eyes. He uses that confusion to fuel his courage, and pushes Lance’s arms away from the table. That done, he perches himself down on his lap and wraps an arm around Lance’s shoulders to hold himself in place. He can feel a blush coming on, but he squashes it down and instead leans forward and helps himself to some of Lance’s goo, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

Hunk’s jaw drops, while Pidge whoops and shouts ‘that’s my boy!’ over and over. Curious, Keith turns his head to get a glimpse of Lance.

Lance is possibly redder than Keith had been before. He’s gawking at Keith and holding his arms away from Keith’s body, as though he’s afraid of putting his hands anywhere near him.

Keith goes for the kill and does his best to leer right at Lance as he leans closer to the other boy’s face, “Is there a problem?”

He didn’t think it was possible for Lance to go a darker shade, but Lance is out to prove him wrong today. He goes beet red and positively goggles at Keith, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“Bonus points! Keith gets bonus points!” Pidge chants and throws her arms up.

“No way! We didn’t agree on giving out bonus points!” Hunk says indignantly to her before swinging around to Shiro, “she made it up!”

Shiro sighs and says tiredly, “no bonus points. They’re evenly matched now.”

“But look at Lance’s face!”

At that, Lance seems to find his brain and form coherent thoughts. Keith watches his blush somewhat fade and annoyance spark in those blue eyes.

 Lance’s eyes dart away from Keith, “that wasn’t playing fair,” he splutters.

Not fair? Last time he checked, anything goes so long as he could make Lance blush.

Maybe he’d have done this sooner if he’d known he would get this kind of interesting reaction. Lance was full of surprises and could prove to be…interesting. His mind wondered briefly to what other reactions he could force out of Lance.

Like a switch had been flipped, a belatedly filthy image filled his head – _Lance moaning and throwing his head back as Keith-_ oh god, where the hell had that come from? His ears were burning now and he hoped no-one else would notice. Ugh, he’d rather the floor ate him up whole before giving Lance more points when he’d done nothing to deserve them. The image of Lance moaning again unwillingly flashed through his mind again. Sort of didn’t deserve them.

“Keith, get off Lance’s lap while I’m eating. It’s too early for sweet, couply things to happen in front of my breakfast.” Shiro says in a tone that implies he’s got a headache coming on. Keith bites back a grateful smile, and gets up and goes back to slump in his own seat.

His eyes wonder over to the board where there are now two marks under each of their names. He smiles at it when no-one is looking. No matter what happens he won’t let this be an easy competition for Lance.

 

{*}

 

“I didn’t think you had it in you!” Pidge exclaims with a Cheshire grin.

Keith offers her a half-hearted shrug, “I didn’t think I did either.”

She hums in thought for a moment, then says, “It must have taken a lot of guts to do it.”

They sit together in the lion bay next to Green, having finished breakfast only minutes ago. She’s tinkering away at something- probably for Green- while Keith keeps her and Red company. He feels like he’ll need Red’s support for the duration of the game. Sometimes, he felt as though Red could truly understand and help him organise his thoughts.

“Kinda,” he responds lightly, choosing not to say more. He can’t exactly explain why, but he doesn’t feel like correcting her. Yeah, he’d had to talk himself into embarrassing himself in front of the rest of the team, but he wasn’t _entirely_ against sitting in Lance’s lap. The blue paladin’s blush was still vivid in his head.

Pidge side-eyes him for a moment, “Kinda?”

“Yeah, kinda,” he doesn’t elaborate, but lightly flushes. Ugh, at the rate of his constant blushes he was doomed to lose this competition.

She thankfully lets it go, but there’s a half smirk on her face Keith doesn’t like.

“Do your best, okay?” she says, “I’m always a fan of rooting for the underdog.”

He snorts and mutters, “just so long as you don’t hold me responsible if we lose.”

“Oh no, Keith. I’m definitely holding you responsible if we lose.”

Keith rubs his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t even start this stupid thing,” he mumbles.

"Still holding you responsible,” she tells him cheerfully as she reaches over for a tool.

He bites back a groan and grumbles, “could you at least give me some ideas? I’ve never flirted with anyone before.”

Pidge pauses midway into her reach, and she’s staring at him blankly; tool momentarily forgotten. He’s acutely aware of the odd silence that follows his revelation.

“Wait,” she says slowly, her arm still outstretched, “never?”

His heart slightly twinges with shame. She sounded so disbelieving. Was it really that hard to believe that in all his nineteen years of life, he’d never flirted with anyone?

He scratches the back of his head and concentrates on the floor, “yeah.”

If he’d been paying attention to her, he would have seen her face soften. He misses it, but her tone is gentle as she tells him, “I’m sorry, Hunk and I promised each other we wouldn’t help you guys out.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugs and lifts his eyes to hers. He flashes her a small smile, “I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”

She returns the smile with a bigger one of her own, and snatches up the wrench, “don’t go spreading it around that I said this, but you’re pretty bright. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

He scoffs, “of course I will.”

“Just look at this morning,” she says brightly, “you came up with that one all on your own! I was so proud, I thought my heart would just pop!”

Keith shakes his head and looks to Red. Though she hasn’t moved, he can feel her approval radiating at him. She, like him, was always up for a challenge. She was letting him know she was pleased that he wasn’t going to let Lance snatch up an easy win.

“Did you see Lance’s face though?” Pidge continues without looking at him as she works, “he was so red he could give your lion a run for her money.”

His brows furrow, “why is Red running for money?”

He isn’t expecting Pidge to burst out laughing, and feels a little hurt when she does. What did he say?

“Oh my god, _Keeeithh_ ,” she wheezes between gasps for breath as she clutches her stomach, “it’s just an expression!”

“It doesn’t make any _sense_.”

“It’s not supposed to!”

He rolls his eyes and huffs. It’s not his fault Earth is made up of silly expressions and complicated chants.

“Anyway, he was so red. I’ve never seen him like that before,” she continues when she’d regained control of herself, “I hope you do it again.”

How could he forget the way Lance looked? Whenever he thought he had, his brain would bring up Lance’s beet red face and gaping mouth. Stronger in his mind, however was what Lance had said before that. ‘ _Enjoy your beauty sleep, gorgeous?’_

It was just a way for Lance to gain a point, but his brain replays Lance’s words over and over. He let his mind wonder if on some level, Lance had been genuine. Did Lance think he was attractive? He inwardly scoffed at that. No, it’d just been part of the game. Chances were Lance hadn’t even thought about what he’d said. Meanwhile, here he was thinking non-stop about them.

“I don’t think I can top that though,” he admits to Pidge after he clears away his thoughts.

"Oh, you’ll definitely be topping something alright.”

His head swivels to the doors, where Lance is lounging gracefully against the wall next to it. He’s grinning smugly and eyeing off Keith. His richly smooth voice has Keith’s stomach doing flip flops. It’s not like he hasn’t heard or seen Lance being smooth before, but he’s never been the person it’s been directed at before either.

Keith’s mind is so focused on the way Lance was eying him teasingly that it almost misses the words implication. After a beat of silence, his brain catches up and he’s too slow to stop his from ears burning.

“Hah!” Lance crows and gestures to Keith’s head, “you see that, Pidge? More points for me!”

“Ugh, Keith!” Pidge groans and fixes him with accusing eyes, like it was his fault, “we’ve got to work on your blushing.”

“I can’t help it if I blush,” he snarls at her. He feels annoyed that he hasn’t managed to keep a lead for longer than an hour. Not that he even was in the lead before, but now Lance is in front of him _again._

“Keep your mullet on, I was only kidding,” she mutters and goes back to her project.

He looks back to Lance, who shoots him a wink and a playful smirk. _Holy cow,_ how was he supposed to win against _that_? He wouldn’t lie, Lance could be downright good-looking when he did that. He could feel the heat crawling up the back of his neck traitorously.

 

Stupid. This whole thing was stupid.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For just $10 a month, you can sponsor a hopeless Keith. Your money will go towards educating the poor boy on how to socialise with others, and hopefully one-day find him a potential mate. We thank you for your patronage. 
> 
> Argghh, I wanted to write more but I still got a shit ton of assignments due (and overdue) for uni but I also was really really really inspired by the comments I got and just had to publish another chapter! Seriously though, everyone who commented cured all my stress and made me finish the next chapter in record time.


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